


Here for a Harvest, Never for a Crown

by zenzop



Series: Nazi gets bullied [2]
Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: But I don't at all care at this point if we're being honest with ourselves, CW for mentions of the Shoah/Holocaust, Hurt No Comfort, I'm back to yell at someone about my generational trauma again, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28942116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenzop/pseuds/zenzop
Summary: Nazi and Commie have a discussion about some things between them.
Series: Nazi gets bullied [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123514
Comments: 14
Kudos: 27





	Here for a Harvest, Never for a Crown

**(CW// Physical violence, misgendering homophobic slurs, alcohol usage, intoxication, violence while intoxicated, discussions of violence surrounding WWII, including the Holocaust/Shoah and the destruction of the Institute of Sexology)**

Everyone in the house had heard them before.

_ "You at least have the privilege of having his respect," qi argued, "of being respectable. You can look like you do and act like you do and he doesn't question it." _

_ "I don't want his respect. I've never wanted his respect. He would kill me, same as you, if he had the chance." _

_ "Yeah, well, it must be nice to have a temporary alliance with the shithead. Don't have him calling you slurs and picking fights. Don't have him calling you -" _

_ "I'd take it, all of it, if it meant you never had to hear it again." _

_ "Yeah, well, seems like neither of us have the option, and I'm stuck getting called a faggot when I want cereal from the kitchen. No fucking safety in my own fucking house." _

_ "I'll keep you safe. Call me, and I'll make sure something is done about-" _

_ "You're not  _ getting  _ it again. You don't know what it's like. I don't want a guard dog, I don't want you constantly having to keep me safe, I want to live somewhere where I don't fucking need to worry all the time about living with a literal white suprema-" _

Nazi was always a splinter between the two. What to do with him, or about him, triggering some sort of argument about how they should handle him. Commie, of course, would have him dead, or in prison. Something respectable. He could tell on days where he stood by him, when they were arguing, that he would gladly skin him alive and feel no remorse for having done so, if he didn't restrain himself, only vaguely aware this was another human being, that his humanity had been revoked by what he insisted on doing to other people. Would throw his corpse in a ditch without a single question asked, if he had his way of going about things. One sentence or a quick glare was enough to make him aware of this. But he was always quieter about his anger while they were living together.

Nazi wasn't a nice man, and he understood as much about himself, and Commie was aware of this. Commie had some amount of respect from him, from his work ethic and his stature and his tone, things he had worked hard to cultivate about himself, not in any way because they were things that made him respectable to men like the one in front of him. But he was grateful that it was usually enough to keep him safe around them, in the correct circumstances, as long as some secrets he had about himself were avoided.

Ancom - was a different question. The question of his redemption wasn't on qir mind when qi thought about him. He'd be dead if he had to be, alive if it was possible. He didn't care much for redeeming him or trusting him again. Despite the constant threats of  _ "I'm going to fucking kill you," _ qi went back and forth on the matter - "anarcho-prisons," as qi called them, seemed to not be too appealing to qim. 

But the idea that there was another possibility grated on him. He'd heard it once in an argument.

_ "I never want to be like you. Never want to think about another person the way you can. I could never degrade myself like that." _

It was the idea that qi could find it in qimself to set him up in a cabin, wait for him to rot to death in his own mind, with his own loneliness, with old age and would still be fine with someone burying him, would still bury him, just as long as he agreed to keep to himself, never speak to qim again. No glory in a death like that. No story in that, nothing he could find worth living for in a life like that. 

What offended him more was the arrogance. Or the delusion of it. The idea that qi was better than him. That someone could be better than him. That someone better than him could exist, or that he’d ever stop, if given the chance.

But qi was gone now. There was no one Nazi had to answer to. No one other than Commie, drunk on the couch, trying to keep him at bay by rewatching Inglorious Basterds, again, with the volume high enough to ward him away. 

It usually did. At least when it was combined with Ancom, cheering at the scenes that featured particularly high body counts. Qi wasn't there, though.

This wasn't a night like that.

Commie was usually too quiet to say anything on his own, and Nazi knew that. He was never keen on starting anything, not unless he inferred with another person. Conflict avoidance seemed to be something he was good at, never making anything more than a quip made his way when they were alone, if he caught a moment he had let his guard down enough for them to be alone, at the breakfast table or when Ancom was out somewhere for the night and Ancap was in his room, doing whatever he did in there. 

This wasn't a night like that, though, either.

But he wasn’t aware of that, and wandered over, quiet enough, picked up the remote and turned off the television, immediately catching his attention, spotting some cans of ale on the table, vodka bottle next to it.

"Drunk again? Still crying over your fucking boyfriend?"

"Not my boyfriend," Commie corrected, his tone sharp and annoyed, not aggressive, just demanding to be left to himself, "Wasn't my boyfriend."

"Then what the fuck was he?"

" _ Qi  _ wasn't my partner, either, if that's what you'd need to hear to leave me alone."

"Not ready to admit you're a fag?" Nazi scoffed, a smile peaking the sides of his lips.

"That's enough."

"What? Gonna cry about how I'm -"

He rose from his spot on the couch, stood over him with a bottle in hand.

"I've been openly gay for over thirty years, if you think this is the first time I've heard any of this," he asked, before proceeding to turn around, muttered a "have better things to do" and tried to leave.

"Hey, no need to be like that, don't be prissy," He laughed, grabbed his arm, prevented him from moving. 

"Did you need anything else, then?"

"I'm just telling you to quit sulking, we have shit to do. Things to plan, Commie. Now that Ancom is out of the way -"

"You're picking on the next person in line. I don't have to listen to this," "If you want to get work done, so be it, but I won't be joining if you keep speaking to me like this."

Commie wasn't sure what Nazi was getting out of talking to him like this, if Nazi just wanted to start something for his own amusement and get yelled at again, or if he thought Commie’s response would be softer now that Ancom wasn't there, as if he's ever been gentle to fascists, but whatever inclined him to speak to him in the first place led him to follow Commie out of the living room and into the kitchen.

"C'mon, we always were the strongest people in this house, we could be friends, or at least friendly. Put the past behind you and stop sulking over whatever happened - what, eighty years ago?"

"I can't even do that with Ancom. Why would I ever be interested in that with you?"

"Ancom's weak, not smart enough to understand partnering up is a good strategy," he explained, “It’s a tactical alliance.”

Commie threw open the fridge, stopped it before the door hit one of the counters, still enough force to rattle the glass jars inside. 

"I'm not interested in strategizing with you."

"There's more similar between us than you'd like to think."

"You've been building camps while we were sabotaging them from the inside out," He objected, "we have nothing in common. We make terrible slaves to you, and even worse allies. Don't speak to me of this again."

"But we agree Democracy is a failed system -"

"Lenin was explicitly for Democracy, and Bordiga only argued against Democracy for the reason that it was anti-materialist, and even then believed in proletarian democracy as a means of crushing bourgeois democracy, just as the proletarian state would crush the bourgeois state," He protested, lightly, taking another can out of the fridge, "You are anti-democracy because you want to bring back the aesthetics of Rome and apply them to capitalism. If you want to ally on the basis of being  _ anti-democracy,  _ you should hear what Ancom has to say about it."

Nazi stumbled a bit. He'd expected them to be more in agreement on certain issues.

"Well, isn't it law and order that keeps society functioning, above identity and rights?"

"That's such a blatantly anti-Marxist sentiment I wouldn't even know where to begin if I were interested in discussing this with you."

He closed the fridge, gestured for Nazi to get out of his way, secretly hoped it would be enough, but whether it was out of a willful obstinance or out of an inability to parse out social cues in this state wasn't of much concern at this point. Nazi remained persistent, whenever he became like this, and never relented until somebody stopped him.

"Our unity and power of will would be one of the strongest alliances in all of history! C'mon, we have potential."

"We have no such thing, and you know exactly why you're suggesting this. You think I haven't seen liberals and fascists try to propose tactical unities with me before? I'm convinced you think I'm an idiot."

"Well, maybe if you gave up this - Jewish cultural Bolshevism -"

The immediacy with which the Communist was able to turn to a cold rage to something more obvious was never something most people wished to be on the other side of. The monotonous condescension, this was something most people familiar with him knew of from when he became tired of something. 

Rage was much less endearing from him, and the immediacy of its visibility was apparent, even to someone as dull as his "comrade" for the time being. 

"What?"

And he took a step towards him.

"I'm just saying - this  _ infection _ of these degenerate values, they're ruining you, your potential -"

"My potential to you is nothing," He hissed, "There is nothing of me that is for you. None of it. What you think of my social potential, my physical potential, my  _ genetic _ potential, means nothing to me. Nothing. It will never mean anything." 

"Well, sure, the Slavic genes might be holding you back some, but -"

Nazi’s body met with the wall behind him. For a moment, he wasn't sure he was breathing until he heard Commie speak.

"You know nothing of what I am or what I could be. Know nothing of my past or of my future, nothing of the person I want to be. You made life hell for me and people like me and you expect some alliance with me to last for longer than I’ve been obliged to keep it? You’re not the kind of person I want within ten feet of me."

Commie, at this point, saw him struggling for air, saw the gears spinning in his mind trying to think of what to say, and didn’t care at all by this point. 

"Do you know how many times I've held Ancom while qi cried about the amount of medical research you destroyed that could've helped qim? I walked into the Shtetlekh I grew up around, where I knew people, where I loved people, and they were empty after what you had done to them. Do you even know what a Shtetl is? Did you bother to learn anything about the millions of people you killed?"

Nazi started trying to kick him to get him to drop him, but nothing seemed to be working. 

“I’ll kill you, damn well kill you, if you don’t let me go,” Nazi screamed, “Damn well go after your fucking pet faggot after I’m done with your body.”

Commie just picked him up, slammed him into the wall again, didn’t bother paying him any mind, just kept talking over him. 

"Can you picture twelve million bodies, Nazi? Can you conceive of that many people? Can you hold that number in your head? How many people you stole? How long it would take for one person to mourn every person you murdered? Can you hold that much sadness?"

He refused to respond, both from a lack of desire and a lack of will, until Commie’s hand met his face, and he tried to catch his breath enough to reach for words. A gasp, at this point, more than anything, breathed a small _ “fuck off”  _ out of his lungs.

"I see you every morning and think I get a glimpse at it. How many of those were my men, Nazi? How many of those were mine to protect? And you expect an alliance."

A sudden pride and rage returned to his body, finally some sense of himself coming back to him.

"What the fuck is all of this for, you fucking degenerate?"

Only got him to drop him when he spit in his face, finally landed a kick where he intended for it to land, landed on the floor, hit it harder than he was expecting.

“You’re scum,” Commie muttered, “And I never want you speaking to me outside of necessity again.”

Commie thought about kicking him back, picking him up and laying into him harder, the bare amount of good it would do. Not worth the effort, he concluded. He wondered how he had enough restraint to keep him from killing him on the floor right there. Hell, if he didn’t know it wouldn’t be permanent, that he’d just come crawling back to the house in a week or two, or if he were any more drunk, he might’ve. 

Instead, he chose to clear his eyes, stare down at him. To keep talking, back in his usual monotone.

"Do you want to know what I know? After you died? When I was living in Eastern Germany, do you know what happened to the people you left behind?"

"They were strong, they remained men, unlike what you -" Nazi was so sure of himself when he spoke, always so sure, even when he wasn’t operating on anything close to correct information, like he was always reaching for something and couldn’t conceive of a world where he was incorrect. 

"They were destroyed. I was surrounded, spent all my time around broken men. People who came back from war worsened. Your men died ashamed of what you made them do, never could live with themselves, and I'm happy to inflict that same shame on any man who insists on following you again."

And that was enough for him to back away, got what he wanted out of this. Nazi tried to get words out to speak again, but never got the chance to before Commie was talking to him again.

"We will work together the next few months. As soon as this is over, I want you packed and out of this home. I never want to hear you coming near me again."

He didn't wait for anything affirmative before leaving, and neither of them ever apologized or spoke about it again.

If Nazi wanted forgiveness, it wouldn't be Commie's to offer.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man 
> 
> Thank you to @penitenceball and @ciliumred for editing.


End file.
